Mercedes sweeps GT1 race weekend at Algarve

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The teams' pair of Mercedes-Benz SLS AMGs each won a race over the weekend. Marc Basseng and Markus Winkelhock triumphed in Saturday's qualifying race on Saturday, while teammates Nicky Pastorelli and Thomas Jager came out in top in the championship race for the points on Sunday.

The Basseng-Winkelhock car jumped into the lead from second place during the mandatory mid-race pit stops in the qualifying race and went on to claim an eight-second victory over the Vita4One BMW Z4 shared by Michael Bartels and Yelmer Buurman.

The championship race was an altogether more frenetic affair which developed into a three-way fight among the two Mercedes and the best of the Hexis Racing McLaren MP4-12Cs.

Basseng held a narrow advantage over the Hexis McLaren driven by Frederic Makowiecki until the pit stops, while Pastorelli ran fourth behind Buurman in the BMW. Winkelhock had a problem restarting during his pit stop, which meant he found himself behind the McLaren driven by Stef Dusseldorp, and with Jager right on his tail.

Jager was allowed through by his teammate after two laps and then passed the McLaren on the same lap. Winkelhock then moved into second with a carbon-copy maneuver on the following lap but was a second and a half behind and was never able to get close enough to mount a real challenge in the car he shared with Basseng.

Jager said, "I'm really excited because it was such a tough fight. Nicky did a great job and the car was so consistent."

Dusseldorp finished third after resisting pressure from Bartels. The German driver, who still leads the championship with Buurman, missed a gear on the final lap and ended up losing fourth to a charging Peter Kox in the Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Gallardo LP560.